Having Killed The Father
by Ripper101
Summary: Centres on Wesley's emotions after shooting his father and certain fictional reflections that come up in that period of thought. Starts as a journal entry and then continues to AngelWes interaction not actual slash, though with certain references.


Pairing: Reference to Angel/Wesley but the story isn't concerned with it.  
  
Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own these characters or the show they derive from.  
  
Author's Note: Well, it's set after Wesley shooting his father and just before the next episode (hopefully!). It's nothing too intense, merely some angsting over Wesley's lack of belonging and Angel's lack of trust. Oh, and it begins with a reflective diary entry of Wes' and then moves into story format.  
  
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There are times I wish I didn't exist.  
  
I suppose if I were to read over the other entries in my journals, I'd find that thought to be an oft-recurring one. I've never truly felt I belonged, you see.  
  
Of course, I've never bothered too much about it either. My father wanted nothing to do with me. And my mother's frequent absences didn't help matters. I did everything for that bastard... I would have given up everything I possessed if only to hear him say anything remotely positive about me. He wouldn't even have had to say it *to* me; even if I had just overheard him talking to someone else.  
  
But he didn't, did he? School was just his method of getting rid of me for comfortably long periods of time. Perhaps if I had been stronger instead of smarter, if I had shown promise for rebellion and independence he might have respected me more. But fool that I was- I shut my mouth, put my head down and kept doggedly begging for the scraps from his table.  
  
Such a lovely metaphor, that! Me, the cur that sits at his Master's feet. I was lucky if he even deigned to notice I was home at all. Though there were times I might have been luckier if he hadn't. That cupboard is still burnt into my memory as a place of unspeakable torment.  
  
Angel knows about the cupboard. I know it's on my file. And Angel seems to be keeping a rather close eye on me lately. I wonder whether he ever laughs at that piece of information behind my back; or whether he pities me for it. Of course he thinks that I was put there by a hard-hearted father who didn't care two straws about his only son apart from the fact that the son had to be a Watcher worthy of the family name.  
  
I would disagree. That cupboard was where I went to hide, in my shame and ignominy, from the father who was drunk, drugged and quite frankly out of his mind. And I don't see darkness when I close my eyes in remembrance, I see blood. And I never sat on the floor; I knelt on it, forehead against the back wall and palms flat against the rough wood.  
  
I'd kneel there and I'd hear my father raging around the house, the servants having been conveniently given the day off or knowing enough to get out and stay out. And I would feel the fear flare up until all I smelt was blood and sweat and I hated it with a vengeance that had nothing to do with reason and everything to do with neurosis.  
  
And I would press my face further into the wood and pray for the day when I went back to school.  
  
Spike found the idea of me as Head boy to be amusing. I wonder how amusing he would have found it if he knew how popular the choice was. Mr. Giles isn't the only one who had his own private hell, thank you very much. In school I commanded a reputation, the respect for the self-destruction that came with using my painfully experienced knowledge as my only learned method of relating. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't command respect so much as a crude acceptance. But once I did, the orgies stopped, the wildness abated and I pulled away.  
  
And my father kept right on hating me.  
  
I threw myself into University with the fury of a starving man desperate for sustenance. But now I scared myself. The fear of blood and physical violence made me actually ill. I couldn't stomach the hurt I had once sought because it brought back memories of a twisted mentality that I was disgusted to find in myself. I convinced myself I was doing this for my father; that I couldn't afford to create scandal for him. And I pulled away from old friends and new and occupied myself with book learning to the exclusion of all else.  
  
Which was probably the reason I was sent to Sunnydale in the first place. I had thought it would be a commendation, the Council's way of telling me that I was something worthwhile. And I found they had sent me there to die, and to hopefully kill the others as well! I stood there, in the ruins of the ridiculous little High School, and wondered dazedly what I was to do now.  
  
I had thought I could never abide the physical side of life, merely because of the associations it held for me. Pain, fear, rape- such ugly words for a small boy to learn. And I suppose mentally I was still the small boy who screamed and begged his father to stop even when he knew from experience he wouldn't. And they thought I was over-protected!  
  
So I decided to fight. And years later, I'm still fighting. But now I don't get the overwhelming urge to be sick whenever I find myself in a fight. I try to fight as if I know I'm going to be cut down any minute and I might as well make my family proud of me while I'm at it.  
  
I tried... oh God, I tried...  
  
Cordelia dead, Angel wiping my memory, Fred too taken up with her gadgets to really be bothered with the rest of us- I know all about it. It was perhaps a good thing that I continued the upkeep of my journals even during those months when I was creating mayhem and madness. I look back at the past year and wonder how insane I must have been to steal Angel's son, or allow myself to give up everything that I had held on to for so long and give in to the darkness that my school life and home life had engendered in me. Laila must have been so intrigued by that display of creativity. At least, I would hope so; I don't remember any of it.  
  
I presume when I read back over this page, I'll want to know what the point to these ramblings is. Well, the point is this- once I belonged.  
  
Once someone told me that I meant something and that I was worthwhile. Once someone needed me and not just because I could decipher symbols or read an ancient bloody demonic language. But because they could talk to me. And no one had ever just *talked* to me.  
  
What I would do if this person were to ever find out, I don't...  
  
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"Wes, you got a minute?"  
  
Instinctively Wesley looked up with an inquiring look, blinking amiably at Angel in the way he'd perfected over the past year or so. "Yes? Is something wrong?" Unobtrusively he shut the book he'd been writing in and hid its plain leather-bound exterior among the other nondescript books on his table.  
  
"No, nothing's wrong. Just came to see if you were okay." He deliberately kept his eyes off the book Wesley was doing a good job of hiding. Indeed, he probably wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't taken to observing Wesley's secrets quite so closely.  
  
"Well, I'm fine. Why?"  
  
Angel shrugged half-heartedly. 'Because you just shot your father two nights ago' seemed rather abrupt and Wesley would probably shut off and end the conversation immediately. "You seem distracted lately."  
  
Wesley hadn't expected that. "Distracted?"  
  
"Yeah! You, uh, spaced out today."  
  
"I never did," Wesley gasped.  
  
"Did too," Angel shot back. Then he stopped and looked sheepish. "But that's not the point! The point is that there's something bothering you and I thought maybe you'd want to talk about it. You know, with a friend."  
  
"I see..." Not that Wesley really did, but at least it bought him enough time to work this out. Angel had seemed to want to be nowhere near him for so long now that he was a little dazed to be an object of concern again. Though come to think of it, this might just be another little trick to keep an eye on him. "Angel, if you're worried about me not doing my job properly then you just have to say so. And if you're going to bring up that situation with Fred again, I must argue that in my defence I never knew that was going to happen! Really, I've apologized for it and you've given me a sufficient raking over the coals and that should be enough on that subject. Rest assured- I won't be putting Fred, or anyone else, into another situation like that without your permission or knowledge. Happy now?"  
  
The man got up with hard blue eyes that fairly crackled a warning.  
  
Angel wasn't in the least scared. Wesley wouldn't hurt him; couldn't, in fact. "Wesley, this isn't about Fred."  
  
"Then what is it about, Angel? You practically broke my arm dragging me into the 'privacy' of your office even when you were growling so loudly the entire building knew my neck was in danger of being broken."  
  
"I might have over-reacted," Angel mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck with an awkward hand. Wesley raised an eyebrow. "Wesley, Fred was hurt. And what I meant to say was that if you had told me, then we could have arranged it so that we'd have been prepared for such a situation. I just meant that you had to stop hiding things from us."  
  
"Hiding?" Wesley temper was sliding to pure outrage. "Hiding?! I wasn't hiding anything! It was meant to be a routine infiltration! I went to Gunn to ask about the legal implications and Lorne spent an entire half-an-hour giving me acting tips on how to seem like some sodding terrorist and Fred rather obviously knew what she was getting into. No, *you* were unavailable when I tried to talk to you about it. You weren't in your office, and when you were, Harmony said you were busy. Your mobile was shut off and Harmony threatened to put me on hold for all eternity if I tried calling you one more time. And you actually have the nerve to... get out! Now!"  
  
"But Wes, I..."  
  
"No, I don't care!" Wesley was very close to screaming. He was keeping his voice in control by the barest of threads. Once that snapped, he might just lash out and try to strangle a vampire with his bare hands. "Out!"  
  
"But Wes..."  
  
"You heard the man, Angel," Gunn said quietly from the doorway, "He asked you to leave. Maybe you should."  
  
"Gunn, this doesn't concern you," Angel said reasonably, "I'd like to talk to Wesley in private. I'd really appreciate it if you'd stay out of it."  
  
Wesley blinked in astonished awe and stuffed shaking hands into his pockets as he tried to comprehend just how much of a nightmare this quiet evening in the office was turning out to be. Angel had always had the capacity to be a stubborn prick, but with his emotions already in a spin, Wesley didn't know if he had the strength of mind to cope with it right then.  
  
So he hit back in the only way he knew how. "How is Connor?" he asked, voice high and shaking.  
  
Angel stiffened and whirled on him. Gunn was startled to see the vampire struggle to keep from morphing. And who in half of all that was holy was Connor?  
  
"How do you... Don't you dare..." Angel was almost incoherent as the despair and fear swamped over him. "How do you know Connor?"  
  
"Who's Connor?" Gunn looked from one to another. Neither seemed to even notice his question.  
  
"Where did you send him? Or did he just die? Is that it; did you just have him put out of his misery?" Wesley was approaching hysteria and though he seemed perfectly in control of himself, he was aware that at any moment he was going to lose his last vestige of sanity and then the people who mattered most would see him for what he really was- just a hurt, terrified little boy trying to be a grown-up.  
  
Gunn grabbed Angel's arm, trying to pull him away from Wesley even though he was no match for vampire strength. "Angel, you gotta leave him be. Just leave! Whatever this is about, the man's not thinking right."  
  
"Gunn, do you remember Angel's son, Connor?" Wesley continued, "Do you remember how Angel loved him and then how I lost the baby to his worst enemy? Do you remember how Connor came back and sent Angel to the bottom of the ocean for so long that he was practically a skeleton when I pulled him back out?"  
  
"What?" Gunn was really getting alarmed now.  
  
"And you fed me your blood," Angel said quietly, "You didn't have to but you did. You stupid, stupid man! You must have known how much I would hate that from you?"  
  
"I didn't!" Wesley suddenly seemed to have collapsed, sagging in his own skin as if he was about to fall over. "All I wanted was you back. And to maybe put things right again. And I was ill-prepared! I had fucked up again and there was nothing to feed you and I knew how hungry you would be when you roused yourself from confusion. I *had* to feed you my blood! I couldn't ask anyone else to do it in case something went wrong. I'm sorry, Angel; I'm just so sorry."  
  
Angel stilled, looked at Gunn and nodded to the door. Docilely, the lawyer trotted out and determined to either find out about it later or forget it. He shut the door carefully behind him, getting the inexplicable feeling that loud noises would disturb the tension and quite probably make things worse.  
  
Angel waited until he couldn't hear Gunn anymore and then walked to his one- time friend, leading him unresistingly to the nearest chair which Wesley almost fell into.  
  
"You want something to drink?" Angel asked at length.  
  
Wesley shook his head, still concentrating on making sure to breath.  
  
"Wesley, we need to talk," Angel sighed, sitting down on his haunches at the man's side.  
  
Wesley looked down with startled blue eyes that reminded him again of that one night when they'd been tired and still pumped from some stupid battle to save the day again and Cordelia had gone home and they'd just seemed to naturally gravitate towards each other. And when he'd gotten to his knees in front of the ex-Watcher, Wesley had looked down at him with a similar gaze; all surprise and fear and worry and hesitant concern.  
  
Angel shuddered to remember how hesitant Wesley had been. How things seemed to change after that night, even though they hadn't ever done that again. And then Wesley seemed to change, until the next time he looked down at Angel, it was a split second before his blood filled Angel's mouth to quench the unholy thirst that had haunted the vampire for so long.  
  
"Angel?" Wesley peeped down into brown eyes that seemed a little too abstract for his liking.  
  
"Wesley, how many nights has it been since you shot that robot we thought was your father?"  
  
Wesley drew back as if Angel had just slapped him. It took him a while to pull himself to together but he answered when he had done so- "Two nights. Why?"  
  
"You tried to explain it then," Angel said slowly, "And I said something stupid about having killed my own father..."  
  
"It was different and you very well know it," Wesley said quellingly.  
  
"That's right," Angel interrupted in his turn, "It is. And I wanted to come tell you that if you ever did want to have that conversation again, I won't make silly comments like that one."  
  
Wesley blinked in surprise and then his gaze hardened again. "Even though you hate me?" he asked quietly, "For having taken your son from you?"  
  
"We do not speak of my son," Angel growled.  
  
"And I do not speak of my father," Wesley snapped back.  
  
The two looked at each other, blue eyes looking down into brown ones and for an instant Wesley wondered what would have happened if he hadn't been so terrified that he'd run a mile from Angel after 'That Night Together'. Would they have kept on being lovers? Would he ever have believed that prophecy if he was sleeping with the vampire, or had allowed himself to even just be in love with him? And would Angel have forgiven him more readily if Angel had been more intimate with him? Just like he'd never truly remember any of his memories of that time, he'd never know the answers to any of his questions.  
  
Angel got off the floor, looking down now, piercing a warning into Wesley's very soul before leaving him alone in his tomb-like office.  
  
And the ex-Watcher thought how ironic it was that the Father should Kill the Son, when in fact, to all intents and purposes, both he and Connor had shown that the Son would Kill the Father. And in his case, 'once belonging' was all he would ever have to show for the loneliness he would quite probably foster for the rest of his life. 


End file.
